I could not believe that I was here.
I was afraid all over again. I felt like I did when I arrived in Creation: confused and unsure of everything, completely and utterly terrified, though strangely at ease thanks to the Devil’s doing.
One minor fact became known to me in an instant: I did not know what I was supposed to do.
Oh shit...
“Norman?” said Sophia from behind.
I could hear her calling my name, but her voice was like a far off whisper. She could’ve been screaming in my ear and it would not have freed me from such a realization as this.
I didn’t have a seed.
But I have a human woman....
I turned my body all the way around to see Diana. She was smiling back at me...eerily.
“You came all this way,” Diana said, “and you failed to bring with you the last and most important seed of all.”
I grew out of my stupidity faze a while ago. I knew this had just taken a turn for the worse.
“You actually thought I would help you.” Diana laughed and slowly walked toward me, her movements sinuous and sly. “I’m shocked you got as far as you did. I was going to kill you in the boat, but I thought it’d be a waste not to see how far you could get.”
“Norman,” Sophia repeated and this time I was listening, “I don’t think she’s human.”
“Of course I’m not!” Diana snapped. She never looked away from me. “You knew humans couldn’t walk through the Field of Yesterday. You even said it yourself.”
“But you—”
“Ah,” Diana interrupted me, “I made up an excuse that you were so willing to believe. A man will believe anything that a woman says if she says it with the cunning of a woman. And a woman doesn’t need much to be cunning.”
I looked at Tsaeb, but also kept watching Diana closely.
“You knew this, didn’t you?”
Tsaeb growled. “Even now you’re quick to blame me still, or call me liar. No! I didn’t know!”
“But you said it; you were the one who told me when I fell off the carriage that the field only affected me because I was human.”
“I give up!” Tsaeb had had enough of my distrust and this time he seemed to despise me for it. “Don’t say another word to me, or I’ll kill you myself!”
“Well then wut are you’s then?”
“Shut up, dead man,” Diana snarled. “No one’s talking to you.”
“I know what she is!” Sophia started toward her. “I knew it! I could sense her, something familiar about her, like a stink you can’t wash off.”
Diana grew irritated; her sly, lithe movements interrupted by more defensive ones. She reached down into her boot and unsheathed a dagger.
“She’s a rat,” said Sophia with a growl. “A shape-shifter, like me, but only she’s limited to that disgusting filth that rats are. She’s a shit-eating, garbage-dwelling, atrocity. She works for Lilith. It’s why she’s been so helpful.”
“So willing....” I said aloud, but really to myself. I thought I should’ve known she was too good to be true. It was too easy. How could I not know that? Oh, yes, because a man will believe anything a woman says if she says it with the cunning of a woman....
Diana was reeling with anger. She clenched the dagger in her hand and snarled, twisting her pretty face into something unsightly. A long hairless tail sprouted from Diana’s backside.
“You-little-bitch,” she said to Sophia, “you’re just jealous. I may not be able to shift into all the things you can with your stupid imp beans—who came up with those, anyway? Imp beans. Stupid!—but you’re jealous because I can shift into the one form you can’t. I can be a beautiful woman. I can lay with a man, or two, or three and be envied by other women. Desired. Loved.” Diana grinned. “But you, you’ll always be what you are, a freak.”
“Lilith cree-ated them imps beans,” said Gorg.
Retaliation for losing Vanity’s Mirror and now for speaking the truth would finally be carried out against Diana.
“Sophia!” I shouted. “No! Stop!”
But she was unstoppable. Sophia lunged at Diana, shifting into her hideous imp form in mid-air and she barreled into her with all her strength. They went crashing to the ground. I put one foot out to intervene, but stopped before I had time to leap. Diana’s head began to contort, the sound of flesh ripping away and the cracking of bones made me recoil. Her shoulders grew broader and her back, as it forcibly hunched over, sprouted ghastly hair. Her hands came up to pull Sophia off her back, and they grew long, gangly black fingers with claws on the ends. Diana growled and squealed and made other repulsive noises that I never knew rats could make.
Sophia buried her sharp teeth into the rat’s back. She ripped fur and flesh from its belly with her claws. It seemed Sophia was winning until the rat began bucking like a wild horse and threw Sophia off. Diana went after her, catching the back of her leg before she could get off the ground fast enough. Sophia threw her head back and screamed as Diana’s fangs bore into her thigh.
I ran to the carriage, practically pushing Tsaeb out of the way and jumped into the back. The carriage shook wildly as I tossed things about looking for something to use. All that I could find big enough was an old rusty garden hoe with a cracked wooden handle, nearly on its last splinter.
In the seconds it took me to return, Sophia was underneath Diana’s fat, bleeding belly and struggling to get out.
One smack with the sharp end of the hoe from behind and the giant rat fell backward with a shrill cry. Sophia stood and fell twice before she was able to keep on her feet, now limping and bleeding from the throat. I went to help her and to my shock, Tsaeb was right behind me. The wounds rendered Sophia powerless to shift form completely. She tried desperately, but was stuck somewhere between being in the body of a little girl and the ugly form of her true self.
“A rat,” said a voice. “A great, big, juicy rat.”
It was a figure, half-human with the head of a snake.
“Field Bandits!” Gorg’s jaw fell off his face and into the field. But that did not stop him from snapping his horses’ reins and getting out of there as fast as he could. In only a few seconds, all that was left of Gorg was a blur of black on the horizon.
Five creatures with the body of men and the heads of snakes stood feet from us. Taurus was with them, too.
He lumbered quickly over and took Sophia into his giant arms.
“They won’t kill you,” Taurus said, turning to Tsaeb and I. “They caught up with me after you all left, but they aren’t the enemy.”
The half snake, half man that was probably the leader said, “We’ve been protecting the men in thisss field forever. We helped you get acrosss on your way to Fiedel City.”
Diana the rat tried to scuttle away while they were talking, but the other four snake men cornered her. A tall one carrying a pitchfork speared her tail to the ground. The rat squealed and kicked about in pain.
I was shocked to hear the leader’s admission.
“But what were you protecting me from?” I said.
“The pixies,” the leader said, “they attacked you from that carriage. We knew they were clossse. Ssso sssorry for not getting to you in time.”
“So, you’re on Norman’s side?” Tsaeb said.
“Yesss,” the leader replied, “we want him to sssucceed. We were cursssed like ssso many othersss when the Day of Darknesss came. We no more want these human bodiesss than you want to live as a sssnake.”
“But...well, Gorg says Field Bandits killed him,” I added, “You saw how scared he was just now.”
“We did not kill him, or the other carriage driversss,” said the leader. “The pixies rarely come out in the day. They ssstrike in the darknesss. We’ve alwaysss taken the blame.”
I went over to stand against one of the large rocks. Failure washed over me. Momentarily, I noticed how the field was not able to affect me here, in the Center of Eden.
“Well, it looks like your effort
s were wasted,” I said, crossing my arms. “Unless you know where to find a woman in the next probably,” I looked down where my watch used to be, “few minutes or so, then I’ve failed like every other man sent here before me.”
The snake people glimpsed one another while Taurus and Tsaeb exchanged hopeless looks. No one spoke. There was nothing more to say.
I quietly left the rock and walked toward the tree stump. I knew I would die soon and my memories would cease to exist. My mother would cry her last tears over me and tell others that it was God’s will. My ex-wife, Amanda, would probably fake her grief during the phone call and once more during the funeral, but afterwards she would talk about how I got what I deserved and collect as much money as she could in alimony until she couldn’t get anymore. My best friend, Danny, would genuinely grieve and then throw a huge beer party to honor his dead friend. There would be many women at that party and Danny would sleep with every one of them he could talk into it, and he would do it ‘for Norman’.
As I walked farther away, I could hear Diana squealing louder than ever. I didn’t have to turn and look back to see that the snakes were getting the meal of the year with a giant rat like her.
I just kept on walking farther until their voices and the squealing faded. I thought that if I was going to die, it might as well be on the spot I had come here to see. At least I made it to the Center of Eden. I made the Tree of Life grow again and I helped free the Angel that protected the Tree of Truth. I may not have succeeded in growing back the Tree of Knowledge, but I was going to see it with my own eyes and touch what was left of it with my human hands.
And just before I made it, I heard footfalls behind me and Sophia’s voice as honest and gentle as I had ever heard her speak.
“I-I was going to save it for myself and use it later, but I changed my mind.”
I thought about her words carefully for a moment. “Save what for yourself?” I said.
Sophia lowered her head. She was nearly bald on one side and her imp skin was brown and rigid and red from the blood. One leg was longer than the other, the hairy, muscular one. She stood with her hands behind her back.
“What is it, Sophia?”
From behind, she pulled out Vanity’s Mirror to show me.
I did a double-take.
“I stole it from Diana on the carriage when she was asleep. I knew she was lying. I knew she still had it because she always held her cloak around her funny after the ride in the river. And I was right.”
I found reason to smile through my failure.
“She knew it was gone this morning,” she went on, “but I figure she didn’t want to say anything because then you’d know she wasn’t what you thought she was.”
I sighed and knelt down to her eye-level.
“I’m glad you have it,” I said putting my hand on her shoulder. “You deserve it. But how can it help here? I’ve made it to the Center of Eden but it’s over.”
Sophia’s lips lengthened into a monstrous, but harmless smile. “No, it’s not over,” she said. “I guess you forgot what else the mirror can do.”
The answer was coming to me slowly, but my mind still needed a second to register what she was trying to say.
“You mean...,” I began, searching for the right words, “I don’t....”
“To be a real human woman,” Sophia said, “is what I desire most. I’ve always wanted it. I mean yeah, once you do whatever you’re supposed to do here, I’m sure that dream will be short-lived for me, but I’m willing. At least I’ll get to be one, yah know?”
Her words made me feel terrible for her.
She did not give me time to argue and held Vanity’s Mirror up in front of her face. Her dark eyes bore into the glass. Her hideous face seemed softer in an instant, but her form still had not changed. Everything went quiet. Everything. The wind. The voices far off in the distance. The sound of my breath getting heavier and heavier. The pumping of blood in my ears and in my head. The sky stood still as if frozen in time. And although there was not a single cloud or bird up there, one could still tell that the sky had stopped moving.
Sophia began to grow.
Her rigid brown skin changed to beautiful, pale white. Her legs lengthened and became the slender legs of a youthful young woman. Her hips smoothed into an hourglass, the flesh tight around her new form, yet soft and innocent and beautiful in every way. Her breasts were supple and round. Her doe-eyes green like emeralds set in a velvety, round face. Her hair streamed down past her hips like calm water over rocks; so blond that it was almost white.
I never noticed that I had gone to my knees watching her. I was overwhelmed by this awesome sight.
And then the sky started to move again, but it too was changing. Everything was changing. The endless yellow field turned deep green as plant life of every kind began to sprout up all around us. Fully-grown trees came out of the ground, and even a mountain and rolling hills appeared in the background, shaking Eden’s earth with tremendous power. Waterfalls were all around us, one to the north, south, east and west. There were clouds then, enormous white ones against the stunning blue of the sky.
I could not get up from the ground. The awesome sight of the world and of the woman, Sophia, made me weak in the knees, and like everything else, my mind was different. It was new, delicate and clear. I knew who I was, but the only emotions that were prominent were serenity and happiness. The woman that stood naked before me I saw as another element of nature. There was no lust in my heart. I was also naked, but it felt completely natural and there was no shame.
Behind us, a tree now stood where the large stump had been, its width enormous. Hanging in its thick green leaves were dozens of round, yellow fruits. Beneath it, that magical moss covered the ground.
But Eden was not yet Eden entirely.
If it were, I would have no memories as if I were dead. I would not be here next to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, knowing already that good and evil existed. I would not still know why I had come all this way, or what I was here to do. The Garden of Eden was almost restored. Its beauty and light was there, all around us, but Eden was still dirty, it was still imperfect and I was moments away from cleansing it once and for all.
“What will you do?” another woman said.
She was sitting atop a small moss-covered hill just feet from Sophia and me. Her hair was long and fluid and red as fire. “What will you do once she offers you a taste of the fruit? Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
Lilith’s introduction was unnecessary. I was just surprised it took her so long to catch up, or maybe she had her reasons. I could care less.
“I know that I’m doing what’s right,” I answered. “And I know that you’re threatened by it.”
Sophia did not look at Lilith. The incredible flowers and creatures in our midst occupied her full attention as if Lilith were not there.
“You’ve seen Hell,” Lilith went on, “maybe not your own, but you’ve been there. You yourself have done nothing in your life out there, or even the one in here, to warrant an eternity in Hell.”
I listened.
“Dear ol’ dad was only trying to scare you.”
“And right now,” I said, “you’re trying to persuade me to eat the fruit because you know you’re going to lose everything if I don’t.”
Lilith descended the hill and approached me. Sophia still did not look up. She sat sideways atop the moss, her sinuous body held up by one hand.
“Yes,” Lilith admitted, “but if you do not eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, you will also lose everything.”
“I already have,” I said, laughing. “There’s nothing left for me to go back to. I won’t live anyway and even if I did, I would have no life. My body is burned. My limbs no longer work. I would rather die than live like that.”
Lilith smiled softly. It was not a befitting smile from one so terrible and wicked.
“If you cleanse the Garden of Eden, it will be like Heav
en on Earth.”
“Then why wouldn’t I want to do it?” I shook my head.
She continued, “Every day will be the same. The world will always be beautiful. No danger will lurk in any corner. There will be no sadness, no anger, no plight. Every single day of your existence, which will be eternity, will be happy and blissful.”
I thought that Lilith was digging her own grave here.
“There will also be no pleasures,” she went on, “unless you consider sunshine or the chirping of birds, pleasure.”
She hit a nerve, subtly but obviously.
“Sex is not a sin when with your wife,” she said, “yet He will even take that from you. He will strip your ability to dream and to yearn. There will be no such thing as ambition because anything you want will be available to you at any time.”
Lilith reached out with the back of her fingers and pretended to brush them down the side of my cheek, but she did not touch my skin. “Then again, want and need are also two emotions that will not exist.”
She had succeeded in quieting me.
I stood there, thinking as deeply as ever.
“Hard to imagine, is it not?” she said.
I felt a twinge of struggle. Temptation was much stronger than I could have imagined. With only a few words and little persuasive tactic in them, she was able to make me think twice about my agenda. Second-guessing the dark and the light side in this particular situation was as dangerous as parachuting without the parachute.
“I won’t fall for it,” I said, looking away from her.
“Oh, Norman,” said Lilith, “this is no trick, although I doubt I can convince you otherwise. You have grown up hearing the stories about how my father tempted Adam and Eve. In this very place. In this very spot. There is no way to make you believe that my intentions are not trickery and temptation, but only to tell you the truth.”
“So then why still try?”
“Because I am not here to prove my reasons,” she answered, “only to speak the truth and let you decide for yourself if my words have substance. It is all I can do.”
Dirty Eden Page 28